Boomerang

Reading Simona Covel’s article “Is This Article Worth $6,000?” in The Wall Street Journal on the ethical and monetary value of pay-for play PR placement is, for me, a fascinating test of patience and diplomacy. It is a follow-up to a previous piece Ms. Covel wrote called “Paying for PR – But Only When it Works” and wonders if by pointing out the public relations cost of writing about a product or company, a journalist has done her readers a proper service. The article has created an active dialog among entrepreneurs, communications professionals and obdurate neophytes, all of whom have opinions about the efficacy of PR.

By paying only for placement of an article, a small (or large) business misses out on one of the key learnings that PR provides: finding out that your product or service is not newsworthy. You see, part of what a good PR person does is to craft a story that has relevance to the current market, is targeted to its audience, and will benefit the client. What some may call “busy work” could be, in part, a PR person pitching a story to a reporter, receiving feedback on why the pitch doesn’t resonate, adjusting it to make it even better, and pitching it again. That busy work could also include analyzing competitive positioning in order to best it, or perhaps even brainstorming new ideas.

Also, while I admire Guy Kawasaki, and agree with his notion that entrepreneurial spirit can provide valuable momentum to a marketing campaign, I disagree with point number 4 in the comment written by reader Raza Imam: “Publicists are afraid of controversy and drama; it’s too risky to your image. But that’s what readers are really interested in.” To the contrary – I would say that, after 15 years in journalism and PR, the fear is with the clients. While many imagine themselves as willing to take a risk, it is the rare bold CEO who can follow through with a PR campaign that may raise some eyebrows or even hackles.

There are many, many more points to be made, but I will choose just one final one. Securing coverage in The Wall Street Journal is, for most PR people, a significant accomplishment because the reporters are smart, savvy and not easily wooed by anything other than a highly intelligent story. That said, just getting the hit isn’t enough; it’s about the length, the tone, the tenor, the location within the paragraphs, the inclusion (or lack thereof) of competitors, how lovingly the reporter crafted the article… Okay, you get it.

Any PR person – pay for play or not – who thinks just getting the coverage is enough is in the wrong business.

It’s almost Groundhog Day, and by Groundhog Day, I mean the entire winter holiday season.  We’re well on our way into the middle of the long, dreary months in which the nightly news and the morning paper are woefully full of stories that seem somehow familiar.  The last Saturday before Christmas, for example, will almost certainly bring a story about how retailers are grading the holiday shopping season.  Every such Saturday in my media memory has this story, so what should make this year any different?   

Wait.  Let me back up, because the season of Report, Rinse, Repeat Journalism began several weeks ago with the annual weeklong media fascination with Thanksgiving travel.  Never mind that it’s as predictable as the rising sun, and never mind that it’s not news – every year, the same stories.  This year the frenzy began on Friday the 16^th with ominous predictions of interminable airport delays and roads as clogged as Larry King’s arteries.   

Had Thanksgiving fallen on December 13^th, it would have been a whole different ball of wax, but fortunately for everyone concerned, the dreaded Nor’easter took Thanksgiving off (instead, we’re dealing with that mess right now).  Travelers enjoyed minimal flight disruption and reasonably clear highways at Thanksgiving because back on November 21^st the weather was practically perfect.  There were some nifty fixes put in place that helped the ease the expected rise in Thanksgiving air travel, but mostly it was the weather.   

Then we got sucked into the vortex of “Black Friday” stories, despite the fact that it’s the same b-roll of turkey-stuffed, bleary-eyed shoppers waiting in pre-dawn lines for commerce to commence.  So begins the annual blizzard of seasonal coverage that always culminates in the inevitable “After Christmas Sales/Returns” story that seem to now begin well in advance of December 26^th.   You know why?  Because there’s a critical distinction between what is termed “news” and what is termed a “story.”  A story without news is called evergreen.  News without a story is called the police blotter.   

In the calculus of PR, a great story + a unique personality + tangible news impact + the omnipresent “X-factor” somehow adds up to coverage.  But when it comes to annual events such as those mentioned above, the “pitch” is already half written, and the equation looks a little more like creativity + timing + “X-factor” = coverage.  Okay, that math is probably a little fuzzy (I’m a words guy, not a mathematician), but you get the idea. 

The key is to find a bit of personality and a new take on the story, even in the most predictable of events.  The sun will rise tomorrow.  It’s the mandate of PR teams everywhere to find a way to make that sunrise fresh and new, illuminating something we’ve never seen before.  As we wind down 2007, it’s a valuable exercise to crack open the 2008 calendar and let loose your creative juices in a mix of the inspired and the absurd.

Although it’s at its absolute zenith around now, the season of Report, Rinse, Repeat Journalism actually lasts a full 12 months.  The happy coincidence is that the season of Report, Rinse, Repeat PR occurs during the very same 12 months (ah, bliss!).  What gets us through the year is being supremely creative even within the confined space of canned, dried or otherwise prepackaged press opportunities.

Increasingly, information seekers are turning to user-generated sources to meet their needs. For those of you new to the space, user-generated content (UGC) refers to media content that is produced by “ordinary people,” as opposed to traditional editors, broadcasters and production companies. This phenomenon marks a clear departure from the reliance on (I would even go so far as to say trust of) traditional media sources. Some argue that user-generated media degrades the quality of information, since it’s not up to snuff with work done by formally trained media professionals. While this may be true in many cases, user-generated content should be considered a valuable information source, rather than a home-grown substitution for traditional media.

One advantage of user-generated media over traditional media is the ability to provide insight from a body of collective intelligence. UGC that infuses some sort of “checks and balances” is particularly powerful because the information is provided with a more global perspective. In other words, when lots of people give their opinion, readers get a more objective view simply because the different perspectives balance each other out.

Here’s an example: Everyone knows the best way to find a trustworthy doctor, a skilled stylist, or a decent slice of pizza in San Francisco (yes it does exist!) is to ask a friend. Enter Yelp, which turns individual word-of-mouth recommendations (user-generated content) into a centralized local guide for various cities. Yelp readers get multiple perspectives on each item, ensuring that no one voice or perspective gets too loud. When I need a quick neighborhood recommendation, this information is more valuable than the food review in a food critic’s column of a newspaper. It might not be as polished or well written, but it gives me exactly the content I’m looking for.

The ability to gather collective intelligence adds a dimension of credibility and global perspective - two aspects that would dramatically strengthen user-generated news sources. Those UGC sources that are positioned to incorporate wide-scale user-generated content are going to make a huge impact on the media landscape.

Not all bloggers are created equal. With 71 million blogs published today, and the number growing by the minute, developing a way to prioritize bloggers into a hierarchy is an absolute necessity. So we’ve come up with three main categories of bloggers: hybrid, niche, and recreational. While they don’t all share the same level of patronage, influence, or attention, they all have unique value.

The Hybrid Blogger
At the top of the blogger hierarchy are what we call Hybrid bloggers. Typically, a Hybrid blogger is an A-list blogger who is a single-entity outlet. Reputable news reporters such as Tom Foremski and Om Malik define this category given their crossover from traditional media to blogging. Hybrids have created new models of online media and have established respectable online brands. Other Hybrid bloggers include Arianna Huffington, Robert Scoble, and Mike Arrington, since they have actually moved into more traditional media roles and blogging is how they spend the majority of their editorial energy. The important distinction here is that the personalities behind these blogs are what make them so successful. So whether it’s politics, technology, or venture capital, Hybrid bloggers have generated a loyal following based on their industry insight and knowledge.

The Niche Blogger
Niche bloggers are very different from hybrids in terms of character and identity. A Niche blog is not reliant upon a single author, but instead consists of content assembled from a variety of authors/sources with a focus on a particular theme, subject area, or organization. (I’d put Cohn & Wolfe’s blog, Boomerang, into this category.) I’m referring to blogs like TreeHugger, LifeHacker, Engadget, and LeftLaneNews – the collective blog content, not necessarily the individual bloggers, keeps us engaged and coming back for more. That’s not to say that the bloggers behind these sites are any less prolific than the Hybrids — it’s just that the spotlight shines brighter on the blogs they represent, rather than on their own personalities.

The Recreational Blogger
The last category is Recreational bloggers who, in general, are everyday people just wanting to share their stories and be heard. They are (long tail) consumers using free tools like Blogger, Vox, and Yahoo 360 to connect with others on the Web. While many are happy to just share their thoughts online, the reality is that Recreational bloggers don’t have tons of traffic. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have something powerful or important to say. I find the content created by Recreational bloggers to be most compelling given its raw, unmediated form. Content rules on these blogs, and outweighs both the site and the blogger in terms of influence.

By no means is this blogger hierarchy meant to categorize every blog out there; it’s really just a framework for understanding the blogosphere in general. The main point I want to get across is that all bloggers have a unique perspective and value, so while influence may be the most popular measure for determining a blogger’s worth, it shouldn’t be the only factor. As I see it, content and theme are just as important. Understanding how bloggers fit into the bigger scheme of things should be seen as a guiding force for creating highly successful connections with bloggers of all kinds.

Blog Video Podcasting News reports that the Washington Post is inviting readers to mash themselves into a video with political reporter Dana Milbank. The site provides a series of clips of Milbank asking a series of questions. The idea is that creative readers videotape themselves answering the questions. It’s an unexpected departure for a rather traditional news organization. Those of you with a political sense of humor will enjoy these immensely.